Churchill, Churchill, Churchill. You’ve got so many great actors playing Britain’s World War II prime minister nowadays, you’d think he was a Kennedy or something.

The standout among this year’s crop of Winstons, though, appears to be Gary Oldman’s in “Darkest Hour” (Nov. 22). The veteran English actor – who incidentally portrayed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in “JFK” – is receiving across-the-board raves for his portrayal of Churchill at the stressful moment when he rose to power in May of 1940, while Nazi forces were conquering France and poised to wipe out the UK’s army trapped on the beach at Dunkirk.

Written from tons of new research and with no little imagination by Anthony McCarten (“The Theory of Everything”), the movie depicts a Churchill under pressure from within and without to come to terms with Hitler before all is truly lost, despite his his strong will – and indomitable reputation – for fighting totalitarianism to the last.

“This story was one that I did not really know,” Oldman, who has turned down offers to play the legendary statesman in the past, explains. “Or, at least, I did not know how close we came to doing some kind of deal with Adolf Hitler. But this wasn’t a whole life I was being asked to do, which was attractive. I just thought it was a very specific moment, a very crucial moment, in our history.

“I mean, the winner for me here is history itself. I felt very privileged to have been able to tell this story. You know how historical events can just become a word, like people say, ‘Oh, the Dunkirk Spirit,’ but they don’t fully understand what went on? So I felt this was a story to be told.”

For a year prior to production of the Joe Wright-directed film, Oldman immersed himself in books, newsreel footage and speech recordings of the great orator (many of the most famous of the latter were put on tape well after Churchill first delivered them to Parliament). Then came making skinny, straight-faced Gary into an approximation of the round-in-all-ways bulldog of Britain.

Oldman turned to Kazuhiro Tsuji, the makeup magician from such productions as “Hellboy” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” to get that job done.

“Kazuhiro had retired and got out of the movie business,” the actor explains. “Under much persuasion, I seduced him to come and do it. Obviously, the physicality was the roadblock we needed to push through and he was the only guy who could do it.”

A full face-covering silicone appliance was tested, but that just looked weird. It was eventually decided that lots of flexible strips which still let aspects of Oldman’s own visage peek through was a more effective combination, even if it took the actor three hours of sitting stock still every day to put them on.

“We found a nice sort of hybrid, if you like, of me and Churchill,” Oldman reports. “I don’t know what Kazuhiro did because it’s sort of like a secret Colonel Sanders recipe he has, but he does something to the silicone that makes it move in a very expressive way. Oddly, it was very liberating and freeing. I didn’t feel that it was something that I had to push through. It all just felt very organic.”

Oldman had nothing to say about American John Lithgow’s portrayal of Churchill on Netflix’s popular series “The Crown,” claimed that they learned of the 1944-set “Churchill” movie starring Scotsman Brian Cox while “Darkest Hour” was in pre-production and just says about “Dunkirk,” the summer blockbuster made by his old Dark Knight Trilogy director, that “Chris Nolan keeps his cards close to the vest.”

He does seem delighted, though, that Nolan’s film and his are high on a lot of awards season lists.

“They both complement one another; they could be a box set, I think,” the actor says. “I haven’t really thought about awards, but yes, Nolan will certainly be in the running. It will be the year of Dunkirk.”

Like it already is of Winston Churchill.

“I can’t explain it,” Oldman shrugs. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s just Churchill’s time. I just feel very privileged to have had a crack at it. It’s a very nice thing to come along for an actor, it’s like a Falstaff or a King Lear, you know what I mean? It’s not every day you get asked to climb the mountain.”

Bob Straus has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.

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